Relearning how to breathe with the water’s assistance, I croak, “T-that’s okay. If you wouldn’t mind letting me borrow your glow ring, I can handle the mines by myself. Just letting me use your bathtub is already more than I would dream of.” This is, of course, a lie. My dreams about Samson are heinous. But he does not need to know that.
“Absolutely not,” he says.
“No, really. In the game, exploring the mines was my favorite part. I’d spend full days in there, gathering resources and being smug about it in my own head when I’d sell stuff to Austin.”
Samson’s brows lower. “Austin was in your game?”
“Yes?” I say against the rim of my cup. “Everyone was. Life simulation games come with a cast of characters, and when you interact with them, they have scripted dialogue.”
He blinks, and his brows spring up. “Even…even me? Was I there?”
Yes, you were, and also that does mean I know intimate pieces of your history, the things in-game you prefaces withI’ve never told anyone this before. But. Anyway. Lying is bad. And I’ve already done so once tonight.
Dropping my attention, I nod.
“What sorts of things were in my…script? Or is it too much to ask that you remember?”
Hahaha, silly man. I’d fall asleep obsessing over your dialogue… “Oh, um.” I nudge my cabbage some more after I set down my water glass. “You’d say endearing things likeCan I help you? I need to milk my cows.”
He snorts, easing down into his chair. “That is…eerily in character.”
“Sorry.”
His head shakes. “What else do you remember?”
Everything, basically. Particularly the juicy backstories. Which is all my brain is focusing on right this second. So I reel it back to the greeting dialogue and paraphrase, “Most of the time in early game, you just encourage the player to leave you alone.”
His lips quirk. “Apropos.”
I giggle, take a bite of the cabbage. It’s seasonedperfectly. In game, there is no information about how well Samson can cook. Probably because Samson doesn’t have thecooks for youcutscene. Anything related to cooking is Neptun’s. Strictly Neptun’s. Because character overlap is poor character design.
In real life, people overlap a lot.
Or, at least, they’re supposed to.
I struggled too much with communication to find the people who overlapped me enough to be considered friends. I valued, so much, how the starkly different characters inVale of Gemsrelied on and cared about one another, even when they were so different.
Chewing thoughtfully, Samson murmurs, “I hope I was kind to you, even if I was standoffish.”
My feeble heart melts. “You were. Don’t worry. UnlikeAustin, you were always kind.”
He chuckles. “What sorts of things did Austin say?”
“What is:insults?” I sneer and stab at the meat. “Nearly seventy percent of his dialogue is straight meanness. Or thinly-veiled narcissism. Even when the player starts leveling up—and surpassing him in skill—he never accepts it. His singular redeeming quality is that he’s not sexist.”
“Sexist?” Samson asks, and it occurs to me that the entire history of the world I know doesn’t exist here, in this world,where it stands to reason that not a single line of dialogue to my memory implies sexism. Period. Proving my speculation, Samson asks, “What does that mean?”
I take a moment to chew a bite of meat, which comes undone in my mouth like butter and depicts rich flavors I’ve never experienced before, then I explain: “In my world, genders haven’t always been considered equal. Historically, women have been oppressed in a lot of cultures, even to the present day. There are men who think they’re better than women, who believe they should be in control because they’re stronger or less emotional or any number of stupid reasons. It can go the other way, too, except of course when it does, the women are right.” I cough, glance at mymalebenefactor, and murmur, “I mean…that was a joke. It’s a coping mechanism. In my world. If something is really depressing, you find a way to laugh so you don’t cry.”
“I’m so sorry you had to live in a world like that.”
I’m so sorry thatsexismisn’t even remotely the worst part of living in the world I knew.
Soft, he says, “I’m glad you’re here now.”
If I’m not a puddle under the table by the end of this meal, it will be astounding. “I…” I manage a tempering breath. “I’m glad I’m here now, too. However I got here, it’s a dream come true.”
My heart flutters when he smiles at me, taking me completely off guard when he says, “We’ve lost the point.”
